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From bloobird@sirius.com Tue Aug 27 23:13:33 1996 Received: from mail1.sirius.com (mail1.sirius.com [205.134.253.131]) by mail.eskimo.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA29025 for ; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 23:13:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [205.134.228.72] (ppp072-sf2.sirius.com [205.134.228.72]) by mail1.sirius.com (8.6.12/960710) with SMTP id XAA00962; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 23:10:46 -0700 X-Sender: bloobird@pop.sirius.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 23:13:22 -0700 To: cyrwyn@infi.net, jharnick@nornet.on.ca, wild@sfo.com, ben@QueerNet.ORG, rscott@cats.ucsc.edu, abing@emerald.tufts.edu, Tadola837@aol.com, z2013@speakeasy.org, astroboy@sirius.com, garcia@sirius.com, talaj@sfnet.com, 100722.1351@CompuServe.COM, troy@sirius.com, webbster@iglou.com, jgfisher@zoom.com, davidk@eskimo.com, elfstone@usa.pipeline.com, bloobird@sirius.com, treed@kinkossf4.com, jim@QueerNet.ORG, ew6@sirius.com, Paul_Couillard@intacc.web.net, craigc@leonardo.net, Sbaratz@Planeteria.net, Brian_Mackenzie@mindlink.bc.ca, erickson@crl.com, DAlembert@aol.com, hapyface@xmission.com, 100722.1351@CompuServe.COM, mmflavio@aol.com, oma00492@mail.wvnet.edu (T'ming), Wilde Boy (Jamie L Heckert), Andres Guibert , Stephan Donovan , "Edward G. Rubeiz" , ffunch@newciv.org From: bloobird@sirius.com (bloobird) Subject: Sept LSD Tabloid Status: RO Hi, everybody. I hope you enjoy this issue of the LSD Tabloid. It represents a bit of a return to the roots of the Love's Supreme Desire collective. You are all warmly invited to suggest new projects, participate in those listed, and cut, paste and distribute pieces of the Tabloid as you so desire (please credit source). I encourage you to become more involved in the collective ideal in your own hometown, and to reach out to one another in silliness and joy. I wish you all the best. Peace, Bloobird -------------------------LSD Tabloid-------------------------------------- Schmoozemagazine of the artist's collective, Love's Supreme Desire, No. 9, September 1996 Tel-A-Fool events & info line /Fax: 415-333-9549, E-mail: bloobird@sirius.com This is LSD Tabloid, the monthly callboard and events newsletter of the Radical Faerie and Friends' creative spirit network, Love's Supreme Desire. We are an inclusive group of artists striving towards a rainbow community of personal, artistic and spiritual growth for the good of all. We welcome your proposals for new projects and your involvement in the projects already proposed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's more to this than meets the eye The past several weeks have been a tough time for me, when I have been forced by the various twists of fate to ask some hard questions of myself, questions that most of us face on a daily basis. Questions like: "What are my true motivations? Who am I trying to please? Am I being real?" I would like to use this space to share my thoughts with you about the meaning of life, work, art, spirituality, and the challenges we all face in our efforts to make meaningful contributions to the general community in these trying and uncertain, though not hopeless, times. When I started the Love's Supreme Desire collective about a year ago, the whole idea came on the heels of a period in which I walked on the Global Peace Walk, had an intense spiritual experience and attended my first Rainbow Gathering in the hills of New Mexico, during which I spent most of the time reveling with the Radical Faeries. I do not point out the Peace Walk and the spiritual experience to suggest that I am somehow a spiritual "good guy" or in exclusive possession of answers regarding spiritual matters, but to make clear the original purpose, the ideal, behind the creation of the Love's Supreme Desire collective, so that it will remain true and be real. The reason I bring this up now is that I have come to realize that I have been avoiding talking about spiritual concerns, which matter a great deal to me, because I feared that people would accuse me of being a "hippy," a space case, or otherwise out to lunch. I also feared to talk about hope, love, and peace because of how cynical these times have unfortunately made me and many of my contemporaries. But cynicism and hopelessness are self-defeating traps. A little picture in my mind kept flashing laughter and derision at those who speak of peace, hope and love. But then I realized, where does that picture come from? From me? Or from the general negative tenor of mainstream culture, which focuses on fear, violence, nihilism, scarcity, and material accumulation? I am convinced that in these times of environmental destruction, consolidation of capital in the hands of the few, persecution of the weak, the poor, the "other," it is only the desire for love, peace and harmony that will light the way out of this mess, and to remain silent is a terrible waste and indeed, contributes to the mistaken perception that there is nothing but pain, toil, and frustration in this world. I have found that when I follow my heart, the world reveals itself to be overflowing with laughter and possibility. And at weak moments, I have found that fear transforms my perception of the world into one of hopelessness and despair. But I intend to refocus my attention on the light, the love, the desire for peace, and to speak about these things so that other people will feel that they are not alone when they dream of a just world full of compassion and possibility, where the meaning of life is more than achieving fame, acceptance, material stability, or other passing illusions. If we support one another with love, we can make it. If Love's Supreme Desire became merely an artist's support or networking group, then it would have been a failure, because the original idea sprang from a vision of artistic, cultural and spiritual renaissance, wherein all would be encouraged to express themselves fully, from a point of love, inclusiveness, bridge-building, compassion, and hope. It is my dream that this will be a collective of sacred fools and visionaries who would catalyze a resurgence of the type of hope, love, limitless possibility and playfulness that could transform the world. If these ideas and this motivation speaks to you, I hope that you will contact us so that we can see about turning this dream into a reality. There is more to life than we know and we have more power than we suspect. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A vision from Flemming Funch I envision a time when most people have stopped having problems they don't need to have, and where they spend most of their time dealing with what is actually going on in their lives, what is right in front of them, what needs to be done. That is, people will stop acting and reacting based on a picture of reality they see on TV, or which comes out of their fears and biases and misunderstandings, and they will start taking action in more useful ways. We live on a planet that is bountiful with resources, if we just use them in harmony with the cycles of nature. We have reached a stage of civilization where most people can live in peace. We have the technological means of having all of us live in comfort. Most of what would be in the way of allowing the world to work for all of humanity is mental problems. It is when millions of people feel a need to be fearful and insecure when just a few people's dramatic misfortune is broadcast on TV. It is when many people believe that economics or politics dictate that some people HAVE to be hungry or without work, and the rest have to work themselves to threads in meaningless occupations. It is when people feel they are justified in harming others because they are different from themselves. It is when people think that life is about acting like most other people around them. It is when people believe that pessimism and cynicism about the future is the logical outcome from studying the past. (continued) None of this has much to do with the real world. Stress and fear and pessimism and bigotry only rarely have proper relevance to the situation one is in. They are mental and emotional responses to the situation one THINKS one is in. Being fearful because of the news on TV, or stressed because of artificially created pressures from jobs with little relevance to creating lives of quality, bigotry because of false information, pessimism because of authorities who seem to imply there are no good answers to anything - all of those are induced based on overwhelming, but largely misleading, information from the outside. This might sound overly harsh, or broad, or condemning. Really, I have great faith in the ability of humanity to heal itself and deal with its situation. Each human has tremendous capacity for setting things right, and I believe we WILL set things right. But I think it will happen through dealing with the real world and its possibilities, by looking at what resources we have at our proposal, what skills we have, what solutions and schemes and technologies we have that will make things work for us. I envision that a critical mass will develop of humans who are able to see and think and feel for themselves. People who will make out the truth for themselves, people who aren't easily fooled by double-talk and mis information, people who will take action on the conditions they find themselves in, people who will work for the greater good in the most effective ways they know of. These people will be found all over the planet, in all professions, in all organizations, in all cultural and ethnic and religious groups, and they will network freely with each other across all boundaries. Flemming Funch, The New Civilizations Network The New Civilization Network - a loose on-line network of people from all over the world who visualize a better world and who are working on building it in a variety of different ways. NCN was started in March 1995 by Flemming Funch and currently has more than 500 members. NCN pushes no agendas, but is about creating spaces where people of integrity are empowered to pursue what they feel needs to be done, and where they can freely link up with others. Contact The New Civilizations Network at http://www.worldtrans.org/. Flemming Funch is a counselor, a writer, a computer programmer, a networker, and a futurist. He grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark and now lives in Los Angeles. He's an incurable optimist who can find something positive about just about anything. He is right now particularly interested in finding synergy in diversity, and in finding out how to make on-line communities. Contact Flemming Funch at ffunch@newciv.org. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Projects & Cool Stuff Upcoming * LSDXXX #2: The second issue of our quarterly 'zine, LSDXXX, will be completed around Halloween. Please contact Josh or Garrin at 415-474-3447. Or mail a $1-3 donation (or pay what you can) plus a $.96 postage-paid legal-sized SASE to LSDXXX c/o Josh/Garrin, 925 Post st., SF, CA 94109-5841. * Tel-A-Fool: Announcing a new events line, Tel-A-Fool, sponsored by the Love's Supreme Desire xxx collective. Listing Bay Area radical faerie and friends arts and creative spirit events, Tel-A-Fool complements Tel-A Fairy (415-626-3369), which lists Bay Area radical faerie general information. This is a free service for both artists and potential audiences. If you want a radical faerie and friends presence at your event, call Tel-A-Fool @ 415 333-9549 at least one week in advance. Outgoing events message will be updated each Wednesday morning. * MAYA, (6/96): a band that includes Peter Horta and Garrin Benfield of the John Body Players, has relocated to San Francisco! MAYA plays all original cathartic dance music -- it ranges from fast and funky, dark and multi-layered, to disorienting and polyrhythmic, quiet and acoustic. We like playing clubs, but we love playing parties. If you're interested in setting up an event, or know of one that MAYA should be involved in, call GARRIN at 415-931-9561. Please call this number to request a tape. GIGS: Weds., Aug 28, ACME Gallery, SF, 8 PM, Sun., Sept. 1, Blake's, Telegraph Ave., Berkeley, 10 PM, Weds., Sept 4, Starry Plough, Berkeley, 9 PM, Sat., Sept 7, Yakety Yak, Polk st., SF, 9 PM, Mon., Sept 9, Lost and Found Saloon, SF 9 PM, Tues., Sept 17, Babylon, SF, 9 PM. See you soon! * Call For Submissions (7/96): Queer Press Non-Profit Community Publishing of Toronto, dedicated to the self- expression of lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgendered and transsexual people is calling for submissions for an upcoming anthology. You are invited to contribute essays, short fiction, and poetry on the theme of: Religious Identities, Spiritual Practices, And Queer Communities. We welcome contributions from those who remain within and those who have withdrawn from religious affiliations of their upbringing, from those who developed their own spirituality and those who work in queer communities to respond to spiritual and religious needs. Queer Press encourages contributions from queers of all religious backgrounds. Deadline for submissions: September 30th, 1996. Please direct further inquiries as well as submissions (three paper copies, diskette, a brief bio and a S.A.S.E. / international reply coupon) to Queer Press, Box 485, Station P., Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S2T1 or e-mail: luhmann@yorku.ca * Call For Submissions (9/96): Queer performance group/workshop The Primordial Tricksters seeks plays that deal with the queer experience for workshopping and possible future production. Seeking both dramatic and comedic material dealing with coming out, HIV/AIDS, the spiritual path, family issues, etc. Also seeking those interested in interactively creating performance pieces/rituals with the intent of entertaining as well unleashing the talents and inner healing potential of those with HIV/AIDS or other life-threatening medical conditions. HIV+ performers as well as all other interested parties encouraged to respond to Bloobird at 415-585-8273. Time is not money. Time is art. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------